


Is it the Apocalypse Talking? Or My Heart?

by NightFlare13



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, Budding Love, F/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-28 02:24:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20418344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightFlare13/pseuds/NightFlare13
Summary: Day 1 of Fiveya week, prompt - Apocalypse.Vanya tags along to the happy world of apocalyptic wasteland. She struggles to handle it, while Five struggles to handle the guilt. Both struggle to handle their feelings for each other. Very angsty.





	Is it the Apocalypse Talking? Or My Heart?

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this is a decent contribution. I thought I was a half decent writer, but compared to the insanely talented people on this site and in this collection/challenge itself, I feel like a 5 year old. But I, though fashionably late, as always, wrote a one shot for day one. Hope you enjoy!

Day One – Apocalypse

It doesn’t take long for Vanya to get worried. Approximately twelve seconds from the moment he slams that knife into the table, she’s biting her lip.

He’s always doing stupid, reckless things that go from backtalking to jumping out of twelfth story windows – she’s seen it before while watching from a rooftop, and yes, she did yell his name on instinct.

Point being, he does stupid things all the time and she should be used to it by now, but the moment he’s running off down the hall she shoves her chair back with a scrape and hurries after him, ignoring the shout for her to come back.

Five doesn’t even seem to notice how he almost hit her with the gate as he runs down the street. Only when she grabs his hand does he whip his head to look at her. For once, she can’t read his expression, but there’s annoyance for sure, in the crease between his eyebrows and the clench of his jaw.

“Vanya! What are you doing?” he hisses, before continuing to run off.

Vanya stands still for a moment, lips pursed and hands clenched. She should follow him. He’s sharp as a knife and smarter than all of them put together and she _knows _that, but he can be reckless sometimes and fuelled on his own teenage arrogance and spite alone, he can get hurt. Maybe so bad he won’t be able to stagger back to them with gashes and bullet holes in his skin.

So, with a half nod to herself, she sprints after him, hurrying as fast as she can with her tiny frame, grabbing at the back of his jacket with desperate fingers. She hates the feeling of teleportation, the sickly flip of her stomach and the ripple around her, almost cutting off her airflow for a second, but when she lands in a brighter, warmer version of the street they just left, the feeling is wiped clear.

“Did you just…” she breathes, her hand still clutching his blazer jacket.

“I told you I could do it,” he laughs, giddy on adrenaline, shrugging the jacket higher and pulling her hand into his, tugging her through another of his blue portals, Vanya giggling along as they appear in the same place, but in a snowy, slightly more run down time.

She doesn’t even have a minute to take a look around, because he’s pulling them through again, and this time, the smell of ash and smoke clouds her senses over the snap of the portal and the feeling of sickness.

They freeze, her hand gripping his even harder as they take in their surroundings. She can’t even hold her eyes open without dust flying into them, the fire and ruins around her still burning furiously, car alarms going off in the distance. Five spins on his heel, dragging her alongside him as they race to the Academy, hoping to God someone’s there, someone’s going to help them, survive whatever this is-

There’s nobody.

The gate they just ran through is half melted onto the floor, and among the bricks, all Vanya can see are scattered bricks, and when she squints…Pogo’s cane. A piece of Allison’s pink feather boa, the one she and Klaus were vehemently jealous of, is trampled under shattered concrete. The glint of a knife, a snapped vinyl record, the burnt remains of a novel.

Vanya’s vision swims. Her family, however broken and neglectful it may have been, is laying before her. Dead. Their lives laying amongst the charred remains of the place they called home. She doesn’t notice the sting of ash in her eyes, the whip of the hot wind on her cheek. All she can see is what’s left, what’s left of the people she loved, what they left behind when whatever _this _is took them away, took everything away-

She crumbles to her knees. The tears are cool against her hot skin, her ears ringing. She can hear the sound of her own screams, her own cries of anguish as she buries her head in her hands and cries, tears running down her neck and dripping to the floor, and now her mind won’t let it go. _Dead, they’re dead, all of them are dead and you will never see them again. They’re gone. Forever. You didn’t even get to say goodbye to them. They didn’t even get to say goodbye to each other. Every one of them, gone-_

When the ringing stops and her throat is raw from her sobbing, her face soaked to the bone with her own tears, she manages to shuffle to Five. He’s crying, tears cascading down his face, his eyes full of the same pain, but his face is still. He isn’t making a noise. He’s staring off into the ruins, not even moving.

He doesn’t move until she tucks herself into his side, pulling her close as they grip with white knuckles at each other’s clothing, holding on for dear life.

“I-I’m sorry,” he chokes into her shoulder. Five doesn’t apologise often. Even when he does, it comes with a grain of salt, because he’s embarrassed to do so. He’s never apologised with so much pain, so much remorse in his tone. It makes her cry harder as they sit in the heat and grieve.

* * *

The sweltering heat dies off after a few weeks. After they’ve buried their siblings, found what’s left of Ben’s statue and Mom’s best skirt, read her novel front to back. Took up shelter in a mostly standing one room apartment, scavenged for food and water, a mattress to sleep on. They’re exhausted, hungry and Vanya’s starting to suffer with what she thinks is withdrawal from her pills.

Their clothes are no good in these conditions. The blazers and jumpers are too hot to wear, and their shirts are too tight to move in, so Vanya, good with things like that, took a pair of scissors they found and cut through the fabric until it resembled more of a button up tank top.

Vanya quickly discovered that sleeping in her pinafore dress was exceedingly uncomfortable, so Five brought her home some jeans for her to cut at to be more comfortable. They’re far too big for her, hence the most embarrassing moment of her life when, while furiously trying to pull in the hem, her hands slipped and Five had a five second glimpse of her panties. She slept in the far corner of the room that night.

Every night whoever is least beaten down draws a white mark onto the wall of their make-shift shelter. The number reads twenty-four.

* * *

The first time Five gets sick Vanya panics.

She doesn’t know what to do. He’s struggling to even get up off the mattress, and she’s too scared he’ll collapse if he tries, so she wraps him in as many blankets as she can and tries to find some kind of remedy.

She comes back sometimes and he’s passed out entirely, shivering in his sleep, thrashing with nightmares. His ear length hair is matted and stuck to his head with sweat, his lips chapped. While he’s still asleep, she lifts his head so she can turn the pillow over, rearrange his blankets so it’s comfortable.

She’s about to start trimming her hair when Five grabs her hand, still sleeping, his face scrunched up in another nightmare. She’s never seen him so vulnerable in all her life, and decides to leave the hair cut for another day as she sits as close to him as she can without getting close enough to catch it.

She runs her fingers through his hair, trying to smooth it out a little without waking him. And she wishes he knew how she thinks he’s kind of cute.

* * *

Almost two years later, Vanya gets her first period.

She doesn’t even look at him, just searches around for some spare cotton that she can hack up and possibly wash later and storms back off, cursing the crippling pain at her hips and wondering if this could get any worse.

She hoped that maybe the malnutrition would stop her period all together, maybe calm her hormones, but it’s done nothing of the sort. When Five comes back, he’s carrying a tin of something and a small pile of some tattered clothes they can use. It’s something, Vanya reasons, but Five’s frustrated out of his mind and she can see he’s at the end of his rope.

What she didn’t expect to come out of that was him getting annoyed at her for looking for pain meds.

“I need something, Five, I’m struggling to walk here!” she exclaims, still digging around the ruins of a corner store.

“Well you’re not going to find any, Vanya, and you’re not using good pain meds on something as stupid as your goddamn period!” he snaps at her, hands balled into fists.

Without a second thought, she stamps her way over and slaps him across the face, taking absolute delight in the shocked expression on his face, her eyes alight with anger. She turns back to searching for pain meds, and though she finds a small pack, she’d rather go through the cramps than potentially die from out of date pills.

When she leaves Five out of pure spite, she stumbles across something soft under her feet. A mattress. The thing is filthy, but it’s definitely usable and she doesn’t want to share a bed with Five right now, though the slap has calmed her down. She struggles to pull it along, trying to lift it without getting it even dirtier, but she eventually manages to slide it into their shelter room, shoving it in the corner and taking one of the good blankets for herself.

When Five returns, looking for her, he clenches his jaw at Vanya’s new bed. The crease between his eyebrows appears. His eyes go to her, and they stare each other off for a few moments.

“I didn’t mean that.” Five finally blurts out, his eyes honest. Vanya quirks an eyebrow at him. “You know I didn’t. I know you’re in pain, and I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset y-“

“Apology accepted.” Vanya smirks, brushing past him with a brief side hug before she shrugs off her jacket and settles into her bed, tucking herself in. She won’t admit it, but the coldness of the bed is strange and she doesn’t like it. She’s gotten used to the warmth of Five’s body beside her and being alone, though she doesn’t have to fight for covers, is lonely.

She’s slowly drifting off to sleep when Five speaks up softly from across their room.

“Can you please come back in?”

She almost doesn’t hear it, and in what she can hear she can practically see the blush and embarrassment through the dark, but she’s done with the act and she wants back in with him just the same. Vanya gathers up the covers from her new bed and shuffles across the room, laying down beside him and wriggling to get comfy.

Five visibly softens next to her, prompting her to snuggle closer. She wonders if they’d do this if it wasn’t for safety, warmth. If he’d want her this close without an apocalypse that’s left them malnourished and broken. She doesn’t know.

She doesn’t know.

* * *

Five feels a soul crushing weight on his shoulders every time he sees Vanya. When he wakes up next to her, early riser he is, he feels the weight crushing his spine, threatening to break him.

It’s all his fault. If he had just listened for once, took her head shake and warning glace seriously, they might’ve been fine. They would’ve been two sixteen-year olds in a safe place where they would’ve been well fed and have proper clothes and a clean bed to sleep in.

He hates himself for doing this to her. He would’ve gone mad alone, and the selfish, caveman side of his brain is over the moon she’s here, but she could’ve been safe. She would’ve been safe. Lived a life on her own, gotten into the orchestra she loves so much. And instead he brought her here, to this wasteland they’ve wasted two years in, struggling to survive, let alone live a proper life.

Maybe if he had just waited before that final jump, they could’ve been fine. They could’ve set up their own lives in another time. He could’ve told her that he thinks she suits pants and jeans far better than the dress by buying her them, not just saying it. He could’ve given her more.

That was always the goal anyway. Go out and see if you can do it, come back, grab Vanya and start a life somewhere else. He guesses this is just that plan anyway, just a messed up, twisted version of that. Maybe they could’ve had a one room apartment like this. Shared everything, like this.

He should tell her about these thoughts he has one day. He should tell her that he loves her. That he’d go bat-shit crazy without her. Maybe one day he will, but he needs to work on having enough food to survive the next year. He needs to work on the equation that could save them.

She talks in her sleep sometimes. He’s a light sleeper anyway, so he notices right off the bat when she does it. It’s fucking adorable and sometimes she even mumbles into his shoulder as she clings to him, her foot rubbing his ankle. Someday he’ll tell her that he loves everything about her.

But what keeps him up at night is the thought that she doesn’t really feel anything for him. That if they’d grown up normally, she’d just brush him aside with the rest of their siblings and find his arrogance and stubbornness irritating and she’d move in with someone else. Does she actually feel anything for him, or is that just the apocalypse talking? He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know.


End file.
